US Indymedia Centers

Riyadh Mohammed 20, an Economics Major in his Junior year at Tufts University, alleges that he was attacked by three fraternity brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon in front of their frat house early Saturday morning. He claims he was beaten unconscious, and subjected to a chain of racist epithets. Police confirm that he was in need of medical attention after the incident.

Never one to hold back his opinions, president of the Arab Students Association at the school, and one who friends say, “puts the fact that he is an Arab out there.” Mohammed is proud of who he is.

On Saturday, April 16 and Saturday, April 30 members of animal rights groups such as The Animal Defense League of Boston (ADL), The Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition (MARC) and Stop Animal Exploitation Now! (SAEN) marched, rallied, chanted and otherwise expressed their disdain for the animal experimentation that happens with help from their tax dollars in their own home state.

viv·i·sec·tion - n. -The act or practice of cutting into or otherwise injuring living animals, especially for the purpose of scientific research. [from dictionary.com]

Harvard Medical School's "New England Regional Primate Research Center" or NERPRC was the focus of these protests although many universities and private companies in Massachusetts experiment on animals, including M.I.T., Tufts University, and Charles River Laboratories.

For many communities who have tried to plant roots in the United States, we live in a time of great uncertainty. Everyday we face more limitations on being able to continue with our work and lives in the US, and everyday people like us have to make decisions on how to leave a large part of ourselves behind in order to be able to survive the best way that we can.

We are a bi-national, married, same-sex couple who write to you to share our testimony as a couple living in exile from the United States who desire to reunite with our communities. We are looking for ways to tell our story from the other end of the continent, and we hope that you might sign on to these words as individuals or as organizations in order to support our case.

In the midst of a civil war, Nepal's king recently staged a coup, suddenly shutting down media coverage and arresting hundreds of people. Sage Radachowsky is a Boston-based ally to the struggle for democracy in Nepal. He was there on February 1st, 2005 when the king took over. Listen to this radio interview to learn more about the conflict between Maoists and the king, hear stories of what life is like there, and learn about the U.S. reaction.

On April 1st a crowd of about 50 people gathered outside the Mexican Consulate of Boston to demand justice for the women of Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico.

As people sang and handed out literature, a large banner stated, “4, 857 DEAD AND MISSING WOMEN, Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico” with a silhouette of a woman with a question mark. The rally took place on the sidewalk outside the Mexican Consulate offices at 20 Park Place in downtown Boston, at noon on Friday.

(from the Open Newswire): It's all getting very real. The administrator of flag.blackened.net, a major anarchist internet host, has gone public with a harrowing account of FBI thuggery.

According to the report on their discussion forums, two comments were posted to subdomains hosted by the server, including Infoshop.org, which claimed responsibility for "propaganda of the deed." Although the administrator "Dave" is under some kind of government gag order, he did say this: "Both incidents involve topics which are completely out of line for consideration here at flag and really I can only view them in two ways. Either people are simply ignorant about the murderous history of the FBI, or, as is my belief in one case, they are trying to make flag vulnerable to government intrusion."

“If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people.” – Archbishop Romero.

“The sad truth is that on March. 24th very few people in the U.S. will be commemorating the martyrdom of Archbishop Romero… because very few people care, and very few people know...,” - Noam Chomsky, before a packed audience at Hope Church in Jamaica Plain two weeks ago.

Archbishop Romero was a powerful voice for the poor and oppressed in El Salvador who openly spoke out against U.S.-funded government repression and mass-murder. Such preaching made him a target of U.S.-trained paramilitary death squads in his country. On March 24th, 1980, a week after the Archbishop gave a fiery sermon where he openly called for militiamen to defy their leaders and put down their weapons, he was gunned down by an assassin while he presided over mass. The following Sunday, forty more people were killed when paramilitaries interrupted the Archbishop’s funeral service with explosives and gunfire. The service had amassed thousands of supporters and mourners both in and outside the cathedral who were immediately thrown into a state of panic and chaos. Some were murdered directly from the attacks; many others had died by being trampled amidst the hysteria.

Like many others across the world, on March 20--a global day of action--thousands of Bostonians gathered on the Boston Common to protest the continuing US occupation of Iraq in a rally organized by Boston Mobilization. The crowd size was large enough to make it difficult to estimate, with figures running between two and five thousand. Local activists, veterans of the invasion and occupation of Iraq and those with loved ones in the military spoke out powerfully against the war, mixed with a multicultural cast of musicians. The plan had been to close the rally with direct action, blockading the entrance to a near-by military recruiting station. In response, the military recruiting station simply never opened for the day. Instead, the final speaker, Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, urged everyone still at the rally (a couple hundred people--the rally ran far over time) to join an unpermitted march originally planned by a group of young anarchists. The march snaked through the streets of downtown Boston before returning to Boston Common. There, some of the police began unprovoked attacks on activists, shoving people to the ground and arresting five. A stand-off ensued, with the police eventually pulling back. Plans are underway, with the support of Turner and Boston Mobilization, to support those arrested in court. The day’s actions managed to at least temporarily unite members of Boston's progressive community across some of the racial, ideological and generational lines that often divide them.

[UPDATE 3/28/05: Two of the detained activists, were later released without charges. Only the other three were officially arrested.]